LEWISTON — Montello Elementary School preschoolers are learning their colors, their letters and how to share.

The 4-year-olds are also being introduced to higher education and careers.

On a display board outside their classrooms are their self-portraits showing what they want to be when they grow up.

Mackenzie and Asha want to be teachers, a popular pick.

Janiah and Yusra want to be doctors, another popular profession among the school’s prekindergartners.

Mohamed wants to be a police officer.

Brody wants to be a teacher for big kids (college professor) and Alexis a nurse. Nasra and Safia want to deliver the mail. Tyler wants to be a farmer.

In a hallway interview, Skyler Mackenzie said he wants to be a firefighter with his friend, Ahmed. The two will be partners.

“Ahmed’s going to drive. I’m going to ring the bell,” Skyler said. “He’s going to beep the horn. I will do the hose. Ahmed will turn on the water.”

Near the drawings are images of the schools in their futures. The idea is to graphically show them schools they’ll attend.

“They’ll go to Montello, then to Lewiston Middle School, then Lewiston High School then college,” prekindergarten teacher Mary Jipson Perry said. “College is the big exciting part at the end.”

Four years old is not too early to tell youngsters about college, she said.

“The earlier the better,” Perry said. “That’s why we came up with breaking it down. There are steps along the way.

On Dec. 3 the school, like many in Lewiston-Auburn, held a college day where college shirts were worn in all classes. Flags from different colleges hang outside classrooms.

Montello promoted college last year to all prekindergarten through sixth grade students, but is doing it this year in a bigger way, Principal Deborah Goding said. As she talked, she pointed to words over a door that read: “After high school comes college.” It’s a constant topic now, she said.

Teachers recently attended a workshop where they were told getting young ones to think about college early can be as simple as using the right words, or college vocabulary, including “achieve, diploma and professor.”

Goding is optimistic that all the college banners and words are making an impact.

“Yesterday a student stopped me. He said, ‘You know where I’m going to go to college? Michigan State.” The student noticed a Michigan State banner in the hall.

Goding said she’s talked to kids about college before, but she’s always been the one to bring up the subject. This was the first time a student brought up college independently.

“I think that’s what we’re doing, trying to plant those seeds.”

bwashuk@sunjournal.com

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